Halyn
by Miss Audrey
Summary: Written a bit like oliver twist but easier. Its a story about an orphaned girl that is taken in by this old lady who runs a free boarding school for orphans. The girl deals with crushes, thos annoying sorts of adults who try to figure you out, and those a


Chapter One

_Concerning Brant's and the people._

When the sun shined on the porch in the spring, I'd always been reminded of my life. The hardest part had been turning my head to look away into the darkness of what it was.

Most of my life was spent in a crumbling boarding school in the old days, run by a lady who cared too much about the orphans of London. I grew up surrounded by friends and although you might wonder why I was so unhappy it was always close to the surface, ready to break at any moment, and indeed it did when I lay down to sleep.

I did not voluntarily go to live in the school. I was brought there one night from the church that I'd taken refuge in. I had gotten along finely by myself living in and out of gangs, eating what I could, begging for clothes or a few pence off of rich people that I saw in the street. Unfortunately, rich people were not common seen in those days-or at least I never saw them. I supposed they would stay inside their houses eating meat and bread and finishing their meals although food was left on the plate. The night I was taken away was a sad one and a happy one. I had been glad to be off the streets for a while but I'd had a feeling about being sent to a workhouse. Luckily, no such place existed for me and Mrs. Malory Channery, an annoying untrusting old lady, took me up in her boarding school, Brant's. Who "Brant" was had been a mystery and it was rumored her dead husband although Mrs. Channery did not seem the type to keep a husband. Her school was actually a large old house a ways from the Thames but closer to The Tower. My belief was that if we behaved badly we would be sent there and killed which is what we were always threatened with, by the nimble Mr. Olin Barlow, the caretaker of Brant's and overseer of all the boys; Mrs. Channery could not be expected to take care of the boys especially in her age being neither witty nor quick.

Life at Brant's was always a laugh if you had friends. In my company I liked to keep Benedotte, Brenna, and Tesil. We all had odd names, mine being Halyn. The reason for them can be traced back to Mrs. Channery and Mr. Barlow, them being in charge. Apparently, when we were accepted at the school (not that it was a tough deal: you just had to be healthy) either the Mrs. or the Mr. would look at their chart of names that they'd come up with and randomly select one for you. Already having a name, as I did, they would still give you a new one, it not being good enough. My christened name had been Teresa, and that being the name of a saint and quite a boring one, I liked Halyn much better. Of the four of us, Tesil had the worst selected name because it sounded like a strange herb use for cooking and everyone envied Brenna's because it sounded like an angel.

We did not much speak of our lives before Brant's and it was good that way. I would not much like to hear the story of how Tesil received such scars on her arms and hands, or the story of Benedotte's wealth turning into rags. I had ideas about what had happened to each of every 39 people in the school, although I could not possibly be sure. Like many social gatherings of children, we were split subconsciously into groups, the only difference being that we were all poor and no one owned more than another. Our personalities were what defined us. For example of my three friends we also had a group just the opposite: Amalia, Jenine, Celon, and Idian, also girls our age. Mostly us four played with our good friends Aric, Olwen, Kennard, and Jeffri. I had known Kennard and Aric, their names then being Hariss and Sam, from gangs we'd been in together. When I had last seen them they had just been taken away by Mr. Nelson who was in charge of finding orphans on the street. I had gotten away by running down a side alleyway and he had not seen me. This was the same man who was in charge of taking me to Brant's from the Saint Theresa's church which, coincidently, had the same name at the time as mine.

Chapter Two

_Regarding people._

I clearly remembered the day I was brought to the school being, as it was only, a few months ago. I had thought I was being taken to the poorhouse or to some group home to live with many screaming, crying babies and a mother who had lost her wits and a nanny that had a habit of taking her spirits quite often and not coming round for hours. I knew of these places from children I'd met that had run away from the situations, them being in charge of the youngers and not managing quite nearly enough to live a decent life.

Kennard had been one of these and said that he "was sick of exhaustiating work and many pains in the head being caused by noise and frequent hitting." I could imagine what this was like and had often felt sorry for him until after he was taken to the school and I forgot. It was a funny thing that Kennard, being just my own age, had such a nice personality even after living with the crying babies and drunken nanny. He always cared for the younger children in the school if they got hurt; not to say that's all that mattered to him. He was respectable to all the girls and even though he was fond of getting into trouble with Mr. Barlow he always apologized with his angel's smile and got off on whatever offense had occurred. He was not purposefully making difficulties and did not want to be put out on the street any more than he wanted to go off food for a week; his trouble was usually made out of sheer fun. Kennard was always quite handsome and I never found out if I did like him or not. Many other girls also had eyes on Kennard and it broke my heart that he was so nice to them: in special regard to the lovely Miss Amalia, the leader of our opposite group. The reason that they were so opposite was that they truly believed they were better off than everyone else. Celon and Idian were twins and both believed a ridiculous dream they'd both had the same night concerning their mother and that she would return from Paris, which is where they thought she was out of the creation of their own imaginations (she'd really died years and years ago), and save them from their misery at Brant's. Jenine had a friend that had a friend that was Mrs. Channery's friend that was also her cousin and believed to have a good word in with Mrs. Channery. She had bragged that she'd been sent chocolates and the note was in Mrs. Channery's writing. It you ask me, I'd say that it was probably Aric playing a mean-spirited joke on her but we'd all had a laugh from it anyways since it wasn't actually real chocolate. As for Amalia, I actually believe I might have been jealous of her although maybe it was because I did not like her at all and was confusing the feelings of dislike and jealousy. Amalia was a very good looking girl. She had big dark brown eyes, that Aric said looked like a bug's, plain brown hair, that Aric insisted she'd colored with droppings, and a light skin tone that covered her slim face and round nose, which Aric also had a comment for but was too colorful to be repeated here. The reason for dislike in her was because she was hard. I had never known her before Brant's and had heard her name had been Blake which she still went by with her friends. Everything about her seemed hard. Her face was sharp and her eyes stared out from under her straight hair that was most always plaited in a neat braid. Even her movements were somehow rapid. She moved quickly and was petite. Her new name, Amalia, seemed pointed. It was beautiful but at the same time dark and mysterious. I apparently was the only one who had feelings like this. Kennard did not speak much of her and Aric thought she was boring and dumb like he thought of most girls. Only Brenna had anything to say about her, "Just because she acts better than us doesn't mean that she is. I don't see anything special about her anyways."

a small glamour about the violinist playing a sad melody of songs. The feeling welled up inside of me when I listened to the song. I felt moved, breathtaken.


End file.
